It can be annoying enough to have one pimple on your face. Not to mention if the pimple gets infected, becomes red and swollen. Have you ever experienced this? Not only that it is painful, you might not want to look at the mirror, let alone meet people. I have experienced bad infected pimples on temples and forehead before and it was frustrating. If you can relate to this, read more about infected pimple on face and how to treat infected pimple.
Infected pimple on face
How can you get an infected pimple on face? First of all, infected pimples can have many looks and there are many possible reasons for the infection.
Infected pimple can be one single pimple that starts as clogged pores and gets infected. Upon infection, it becomes inflamed and swollen with pus inside it. This can happen when you try to squeeze the clogged pores, but the action irritates the pores or damages the skin around it which then gets infected. Or sometimes this kind of clogged pores just suddenly become inflamed and infected. If your body is prone to inflammation, this can happen.
Or you might be referring to a pimple that gets infected when you try to squeeze it. And shortly after you might see the surrounding clogged pores become infected as well. The infected pimple creates a cluster of red, swollen pimples.
How to treat
Do not try to squeeze the pimple until it shows the yellow head. Once the yellow head shows up, you can squeeze it gently to get the pus and blood out. After that normally I will cover the pimple with an acne patch. Acne patch is my best friend in sucking out the excess liquid/pus that I could not squeeze out. Acne patch will also help to cover the wound, so that you will not touch the wound and infect it again. This way the wound can recover faster.
If you have a cluster of infected pimples, be gentle even if you want to squeeze any of them or all of them. You can choose to cover them as well with an acne patch. Or, you can choose to treat them with antibacterial spot treatment or cream of your choice. Many people benefit from using benzoyl peroxide. Some can use a more natural remedy like tea tree oil. Or if you get antibiotic cream from your dermatologist to apply on infected pimples, you can apply that too.
If you have pimple cream that has a strong active ingredient, be mindful to just use it for spot treatment on the pimple. Do not put it all over your skin. This is because some creams can dry the skin. For me, benzoyl peroxide at any percentage will dry my skin so badly that it will flake the next day. You do not want to irritate your skin further.
How to reduce swelling on face from infected pimple
If your infected pimple is swollen, you can use ice compress to calm down the inflammation and reduce the swelling.
However if the swelling has been happening for sometime and there is liquid build up under the skin, you might want to fasten the healing process by bringing the pimple to its head. You can do it by compressing the infected pimple using warm cloth/towel. Do not press your infected pimple in the process, but gently compress the pimple area. This can help with the blood circulation around the area, which will fasten the healing process.
Healing from infected pimple
The most important thing to remember about dealing with infected pimples is to be gentle with yourself and your skin. You need to be patient when your body is going through an infection. You might feel pain in the area where you have infected pimples. If the infection spreads to many parts of your face or your body, you will need to seek professional help. This might require oral antibiotics from the doctor at the hospital. Simple treatment at home will not help.
Not only that infected pimple feels painful physically, it might also affect your self esteem and confidence level. If this happens to you, this is normal and you are not alone. Just focus on recovering from the infection first, and then you can focus on your looks later on. There are many ways to look good again after you experience infected pimples – be it skincare or even beauty treatments!
Learn more about pimples with Skin-pedia!